19/3/16

International Hotel and Conference Center

In
1966 the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Finance sponsored an international
competition for the design of a conference centre with hotel and mosque. The
German team of Rolf Gutbrod and Frei Otto won the competition. Their design,
inspired by Bedouin tents, proposed an enormous tent structure which would
shelter beneath it an artificial oasis surrounded by the conference facilities
and hotel rooms. The tent structure, marked at the centre by a 60-metre-high
mast carrying a water tank, would have been open at the sides and top,
permitting air to flow in and vent upward. After the competition the architects
were asked by the ministry to develop their scheme for a different site, one
located four miles west of Mecca, along a dry wadi bed, surrounded by the rugged
Sirat hills. The winning design which had been suitable for the flat desert
site near Riyadh was no longer appropriate. The new site's proximity to the
holy city and the surrounding rugged terrain suggested a different solution,
one less obtrusive and more in harmony with the landscape.

The new design preserved the relationship
between the auditorium and seminar rooms. However, the single tent structure
was eliminated. Instead, the architecture focused around two partially shaded
gardens - places of quiet refreshment and a welcome respite from the arid
desert surroundings. The informal distribution of spaces around the open areas
recalls traditional community layout.